First edition. 21 etched plates and supplementary title page etched by Beilet and Forestier after drawings by Zaleski. All plates with protective tissue, some with very faint marginal browning or foxing. Oblong small folio. Contemporary quarter red morocco with red cloth-covered boards, gilt lettering to front board; minor wear to extremities, boards worn and slightly faded, a few dark stains to front board. A very good copy internally. (ii), 67pp. Paris, J. -B. Vasseur, 1865.
Zaleski (1819-1880) was a Polish painter who lived in Orenburg, from where he spent just under a decade travelling through part of the vast Kazakh Steppe. His drawings, beautifully reproduced here as etchings, show scenes in Kyrgyzstan and what are now areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Each plate is preceded by a lively descriptive passage on the landscape, architecture or people depicted in the image.
